On the Origins or the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language

the inhabitants themselves call it "Islem." A region happy in sky and soil, Shum which the phrase indicates, noting "rich," of which thing one made an argument once, before they depended on the trifles of Muhammad, who forbids wine, when a mountain was called ampelousia vine-land because of its notable fertility for the vine. Some write that this was Phut, whom the Greeks, audacious in every respect in their fables, call Phaethon. For when they receive anything about a man of unknown origin, either by fame or present account, if there is some famous deed or unusual event, they immediately place such a one, whose origin they are ignorant of, into the class of certain gods, as they write that this one was the son of the sun and the nymph Clymene. Thus, by their trifles, they fashion and invent for themselves countless gods—Jupiters, Marses, Saturns, and such—more often lost dregs of men, perhaps famous for only one or no virtue, dividing the indivisible God into a thousand most diverse particles. The fourth of the sons of Ham, by the name Canaan, inhabited the borders of Egypt and Syria where it touches Palestine, and called the land Canaan. But later, the name having been changed and that one having been ejected by the greed of men intent on profit, which the phrase Canaan shows, it was called Judea and Palestine. Now we will treat the sons of Cush or the Ethiopian. Five children were born to him: Saba, Havilah, Sabtha, Raamah or Regma, and Sabteca. The name Saba gave especially to Arabia Felix. All profane authors call it the Sabean. Saba The Hebrew voice denotes a circuit or ambit. For it is enclosed on all sides by the sea—the Persian, the Indian, the Arabian, or the Red. Let no one wonder that names given to things, even proper ones, especially those notable for some antiquity, bear a great property of the thing, so that God, fate, or nature unknown to man suggesting it—until he has read the Cratylus of Plato, "On the Right Imposition of Names"—then he will say that we commit nothing absurd in this argument, as we who strive to bring forward not only the names themselves but also the reason and etymology. Havilah, those later called the Gaetulians, if we believe Josephus, he had called by his own name; today they call them the Tanbutians and Melians, where, because of the stench of the mouth, the inhabitants trade gold for salt. By the voice Havilah, Havilah the Hebrews understand "the suffering one."